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41. EU and the Western Balkans: When Enlargement Gets Politicised

Author:
Gentiola Madhi
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
Abstract:
On Wednesday the 5th of February the European Commission proposed a revised methodology for the accession process for candidate and potential candidate countries. This methodology will be applied to Albania and North Macedonia, although for Montenegro and Serbia there has also been foreseen an opt-in in case they want to join. The document strives to inject new dynamism into the enlargement process in the Western Balkans, while attempting to introduce more clarity and predictability, stricter monitoring as well as improved incentives for the soon-to-be negotiating countries to deliver on EU reforms. The negotiating chapters have been divided into six clusters, where the fundamentals cluster will be the first to open and the last to be closed.
Topic:
European Union, Democracy, and Regional Integration
Political Geography:
Europe, Balkans, Albania, and North Macedonia

42. Viral vulnerability: How the pandemic is making democracy sick in the Western Balkans

Author:
Beáta Huszka and Tania Lessenska
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
Abstract:
The covid-19 crisis has accentuated Western Balkans countries’ pre-existing vulnerabilities related to the rule of law and democratic governance – but has not brought about a new political era in the region. Western Balkans governments have often taken selective and arbitrary approaches to applying restrictions in response to the pandemic, sometimes using these measures to silence their critics and opponents. The measures could have the most severe long-term effects of any aspect of the crisis response. They exacerbate the greatest threat to the accession process in the Western Balkans: backsliding on the EU’s political criteria. Yet the EU seems less inclined than it once was to allow Western Balkans governments to get away with democratic backsliding just because they align themselves with the bloc geopolitically.
Topic:
Government, European Union, Democracy, Crisis Management, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Europe and Balkans

43. EU membership of the Western Balkan states in times of crisis: From a strategic choice to protracted inertia

Author:
Marko Stojić
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Europeum Institute for European Policy
Abstract:
Our associate research fellow Marko Stojić in his latest policy paper deals with the Western Balkans' European perspective and the COVID-19 crises' impact on the countries' journey towards EU membership.
Topic:
Democratization, Regional Cooperation, European Union, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Europe and Balkans

44. Western Balkans in 2020

Author:
Žiga Faktor and Jana Juzová
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Europeum Institute for European Policy
Abstract:
Our researchers, Žiga Faktor and Jana Juzová, analyse elections in Serbia, Croatia, Northern Macedonia and Montenegro in four policy papers and offer recommendations aimed at strengthening the EU's enlargement policy. In this report, EUROPEUM’s two researchers – Jana Juzová and Žiga Faktor – analyze each of the four elections from these perspectives in four policy papers, offering succinct dissections of the elections themselves, as well as what they portend for the future of the region and the EU’s enlargement policy. Based on their analyses, they offer policy recommendations designed to strengthen the EU enlargement policy in a tailor-made approach rather than the hitherto “one size fits all”-approach that has proven dysfunctional not only from the perspective of future enlargement, but also retrospectively during the last enlargement wave in 2004. The enlargement policy may be seen as marginalized today, yet the enlargement policy is not solely a policy of enlargement; it is a window into the state of the EU, as well as the soul of Europe itself. It is therefore my pleasure to invite interested readers to read more about the 2020 developments in the Western Balkans, offering both valuable insights about the region itself, and an opportunity to thoughtfully consider what role the EU and Europe should play in a changing world marred by instability and upheaval.
Topic:
Elections, European Union, Domestic Politics, and Parliamentarism
Political Geography:
Europe, Serbia, Balkans, Croatia, and Montenegro

45. The Balkans: Old, New Instabilities

Author:
Giorgio Fruscione
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
Abstract:
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 could be a crucial year for the Western Balkans. For over twenty years, the region has been stuck in a never-ending transition. Politics, economics, and geopolitics are still falling prey to old and new sources of instability. With the path towards the EU integration still uncertain, today many governments are marked by autocratic stances and international actors strive for a bigger say in the region. NATO is expanding to the Balkans, but regional security still depends on foreign soft power and influence. And while recipes for economic transition focus mainly on foreign direct investments that often lack transparency, Balkan societies are losing their citizens to substantial emigration. What are the factors contributing to the Western Balkans instability in the age of Covid-19? Will the region be the ground for renewed geopolitical competition? How can the Balkans exit the transition and find a sustainable balance between all these tensions?
Topic:
NATO, European Union, COVID-19, and Instability
Political Geography:
Europe and Balkans

46. Tailor-made laws in the Western Balkans

Author:
Gjergji Vurmo
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
This CEPS Policy Insight takes a lively rhetorical approach to showing how state capture in the Western Balkans has been ignored since the launch of the region’s EU accession process, despite the many examples highlighted by civil society and independent media. It argues that while the EU first acknowledged the clear signs of state capture in an official document in 2016, Western Balkan political elites had already built powerful networks of corrupt interests around them. Not only that, they had already reached the highest point of state capture – tailor-made laws.
Topic:
Corruption, Law, European Union, and State Capture
Political Geography:
Europe and Balkans

47. China and the EU in the Western Balkans: A zero-sum game?

Author:
Wouter Zweers and Frans-Paul van der Putten
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations
Abstract:
This Clingendael Report explores whether and how China’s approach to the six non-European Union (EU) countries of the Western Balkans (the WB6) relates to EU interests. It focuses in particular on the question of whether China’s influence affects the behaviour of the WB6 governments in ways that run counter to the EU’s objectives in the region. China engages with the Western Balkans primarily as a financier of infrastructure and a source of direct investment. This is in line with China’s main strategic objective for the Western Balkans – that is, to develop the Land–Sea Express Corridor, a component of its Belt and Road Initiative, aimed at improving China–EU connectivity. This report proposes a number of actions based on recognising the developmental needs of countries in the Western Balkans, and accepting that China’s economic involvement is inevitable and potentially beneficial for such developmental needs. In particular, the EU should maximise accession conditionality as a tool to influence the conditions under which China is involved in the region.
Topic:
Infrastructure, European Union, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Economic Development, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and Balkans

48. The destructive effects of state capture in the Western Balkans: EU enlargement undermined

Author:
Wouter Zweers
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations
Abstract:
This Clingendael policy brief analyses the destructive effects of state capture in the Western Balkans and how it undermines the EU enlargement process. Using the case of Serbia, this policy brief shows how state capture mechanisms selectively strengthen the ruling party and its leadership while it weakens the opposition and independent institutions. State capture weakens the effectiveness of EU conditionality and reduces the credibility of the EU enlargement process. Tackling state capture, through strengthening accountability structures and increasing transparency, is identified as a key priority for the EU enlargement process to be successful in the future.
Topic:
European Union, Accountability, and Institutions
Political Geography:
Europe, Serbia, and Balkans

49. North Macedonia: What’s Next?

Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Open Society Foundations
Abstract:
In January 2019, Macedonia’s parliament approved, by a two-thirds majority, a constitutional amendment to change the country’s name to the Republic of North Macedonia. While this represented a major step toward North Macedonia’s ultimate goal of establishing a durable, stable democracy, the name change must still be endorsed by Greece’s parliament before it can go into full effect. But as a new report from the Open Society European Policy Institute shows, a newly-named North Macedonia would still face significant challenges—and opportunities. North Macedonia: What’s Next? examines the 2018 Prespa Agreement between neighboring Greece and North Macedonia, which laid out agreed upon conditions for resolving the longstanding dispute over Macedonia’s name, and what it means for the larger project of integrating the countries in the Western Balkans more fully into the political and economic systems of Europe, the British Isles, and the United States. The report further explores how key players—such as the European Union, NATO, Russia, other Western Balkans states—approach the Prespa Agreement, explains the significance of the name change in larger geopolitical terms, and offers insight into possible scenarios for the final resolution of this fraught and lengthy conflict.
Topic:
NATO, Democratization, Regional Cooperation, European Union, Democracy, Constitution, and Nation-State
Political Geography:
Balkans, Macedonia, and North Macedonia

50. European Union-Western Balkans: for a revised membership negotiation framework

Author:
Pierre Mirel
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Robert Schuman Foundation (RSF)
Abstract:
Whilst the Thessaloniki Summit in 2003 opened up European prospects for the Western Balkans, the agenda that was promoted then has hardly been completed to date. These countries have experienced worrying democratic regression in a serious demographic and economic situation which is playing into the hands of re-emerging powers. The re-engagement of the European Union with the Berlin Process and the six flagship initiatives on the part of the Commission, approved in 2018 is positive, but is now seen to be lacking. Divisions are still deep, and reconciliation is waning. Given the fragile stability of these countries, which are now being wooed by third parties, the time has come for a new approach. Economic and political re-engagement, including the launch of membership negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia, but based on a new framework, is vital for the very security of Europe.
Topic:
Security, European Union, Regional Integration, Negotiation, and Reconciliation
Political Geography:
Europe and Balkans